Biological Limitations to
Classical Conditioning
Remember Watson’s conditioning of Albert?
Could he have just as easily conditioned
that fear response to a flower or a piece
of ribbon?
Probably not
• Humans and animals have certain
biological predispositions that aide or
hinder conditioning.
• Humans have an adaptive fear of things like
snakes or other threatening animals
“Snakes. I hate snakes.” - Indiana Jones
Conditioning principles don’t tell
the whole story about learning.
Biological Influences:
• Unconditioned Responses
• Genetic Predispositions
• Adaptive Responses
Psychological Influences:
• Previous Experiences
• Predictability of
Associations
• Generalization
LEARNING
Socio-cultural Influences:
• Culturally learned preferences
• Motivation, affected by the
presence of others
Biological Predispositions
• Martin Seligman (1972): most common
fears "are related to the survival of the
human species through the long course
of evolution“
• Taste Aversion
• the intense dislike and/or avoidance of
particular foods that have been
associated with nausea or discomfort
• biologically adaptive for survival
Biological Predispositions
• Garcia & Koelling
• Exposed rats to 3-way conditioned
stimulus:
• bright light, clicking noise, flavored water
• One group was exposed to US
producing nausea and vomiting
several hours after exposure.
Biological Predispositions
• Garcia & Koelling
• Rats formed an association between
nausea and flavored water ingested
several hours earlier.
• contradicted the principle that CS
must be presented shortly before
the US
• Animals are biologically predisposed
to make associations: taste & food
in rats, sight & food in birds, etc.
• Taste aversion works in humans
Biological Predispositions
• Scapegoat effect
• People undergoing chemotherapy
sometimes associate food they ate
before treatment, or the place they
receive treatment with nausea.
• Bernstein (1982) came up with a
novel-tasting, maple-flavored ice
cream before chemo.
• Patients less likely to associate
nausea with healthy food or place.
Biological Predispositions
• What about Operant Conditioning?
• Condition hamsters to dig or rear-up
using food as a reinforcer
• natural food-searching behavior
• not as successful face washing or other
non-food searching behaviors
• Pigeons flap wings to avoid shock or
peck to get food
Biological Predispositions
• Bottom line
Biological constraints predispose
organisms to learn associations that
are naturally adaptive.
Classical Conditioning in
Everyday Life
• Why can diet soda make people
hungry?
• The sweet taste of soda becomes a
CS.
• elicits insulin increase (UR)
• leads to feelings of hunger
• The pancreas pumps out insulin
(lowers blood sugar) in response to
any sweet taste such as diet soda.
Vocabulary Assignment
In preparation for the next modules,
please (1) define the following terms and
(2) use them in a contextual sentence.
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cognitive map
latent learning
insight
intrinsic motivation
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extrinsic motivation
learned helplessness
external locus of
control
internal locus of
control